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'A Phony Who Lied About Intel': Ex-Trump Official Slams Former CIA Officer Over Hunter Biden Laptop

© AP Photo / Andrew Harnik, PoolHunter Biden (File)
Hunter Biden (File) - Sputnik International, 1920, 29.03.2022
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The information about Hunter Biden's laptop was first mentioned in a 2020 New York Post article that focused on Joe Biden's purported involvement in his son's business dealings overseas during his tenure as US vice president.
An ex-Trump official and a former officer of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have locked horns over the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop-related story in a Twitter war of words.
The row happened late last week, when Richard Grenell, the former acting director of national intelligence responded to a post by retired CIA officer John Sipher, who tweeted about ethical behaviour among public servants.

"Didn’t John Sipher sign a letter 3 weeks before the 2020 [US presidential] elections saying don't look at Hunter Biden's laptop because it's Russian disinformation? Now he's lecturing people about ethical behavior?! These people have no shame […]", Grenell claimed in a tweet on Saturday.

He was referring to a letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials, including Sipher, and released after the New York Post (NYP) in October 2020 revealed the existence of what was purported to be Hunter Biden's laptop, which contained damning information on his business dealings in Ukraine that implicated his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden.
As for Sipher, he was among the scores of signatories who then refused to apologise for their signing the letter after another US newspaper, The New York Times, "authenticated" the existence of the laptop, which was earlier described by the newspaper as "Russian disinformation".
This was mentioned by Grenell after his Twitter showdown with Sipher entered its second day.

"​You signed the letter and then refused to respond to th​e New York Post. So stop the name calling and answer – is Hunter Biden's laptop Russian disinformation?​", he tweeted on Sunday.

​In a subsequent post, Grenell wrote that while he was calling for sanctions on Nord Stream 2, Sipher was claiming Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation. "You lied. There wasn't a single piece of intel that suggested it", he added.
Sipher responded by tweeting that ​”"there are no lies there" and that "the Russians clearly used the issue to damage our country [the US] but you and your ilk merely enabled and furthered Russian disinformation". The ex-CIA officer argued that Grenell "will support anything – even lies – to suck up to Trump".

The former Trump official retaliated by tweeting that he's "obsessed" with identifying people who "manipulated intelligence for their partisan political gain", adding in a nod to Sipher: "You said Hunter's laptop was Russian disinformation. You told the public not to take the laptop seriously. You pretended to have seen intel. You didn't even get a briefing".

Sipher cracked back posting that the remarks come from "the man who failed to say a word when his boss said he trusted [Russian President Vladimir] Putin more than his own intelligence community".
Shortly thereafter, Grenell argued that Sipher "can run but he can't hide​", slamming the former CIA officer as "a phony who lied about intel". This was followed by the ex-Trump official posting a new tweet that included an image of Sipher blocking his tweets.
"Lol. He signed the letter saying Hunter's laptop was Russian disinformation​", Grenell tweeted.

Hunter Biden Laptop Story

The story originates with a bombshell New York Post article from October 2020, which exposed alleged corruption by the former vice president's son and apparent involvement of Joe Biden in Hunter's business deals.
The laptop in question, containing a trove of potentially damning documents and described by then-President Donald Trump as "the laptop from hell", was reportedly abandoned by Hunter Biden at a Delaware repair shop in April 2019. The younger Biden recently said that the laptop could have "absolutely" belonged to him, but added that he had never taken it to an IT store and claimed the device was perhaps stolen or hacked by Russian intelligence.
In the October 2020 article, the NYP mentioned two alleged emails that Hunter Biden purportedly received from a top official at the Ukrainian company Burisma while he was on the board of the firm.
In a May 2014 email, Burisma board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi purportedly asked Joe Biden's son to "use [his] influence" to politically support the Ukrainian company, while in another email, dated April 2015, Pozharskyi thanked the younger Biden for arranging a meeting with his father, then-US Vice President Joe Biden.
POTUS has repeatedly denied that he had any knowledge about his son's work and financial gains.
Former US Attorney General William Barr claimed after the release of the NYT's article about the authenticity of the laptop that Joe Biden "lied to the American people" during a presidential debate when he called the NYP's exposure of Hunter's emails "a Russian plant".
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